by Scott BourneBanner advertising can be very effective, but only if you’re being exposed to the right audience. Placing a banner ad for children’s photography on the Home Depot site, because you want to be out there in time for Father’s Day will be as effective as advertising in Guns and Ammo magazine! Why? Because an industry study showed, in reference to the portrait and wedding categories; 98% of the purchase decisions to hire a professional photographer are made by women! You have to consider the demographics of the site where you’re advertising so you’re hitting the right target. It’s also important wherever you link from your banner ad is the absolute strongest presentation of your work, e.g. take people right to your images!

In my personal tests, working with lots of clients, the only banner ads that work seem to be those placed on Facebook. You might explore Facebook ads if their younger demographic matches your target market. Otherwise, banner ads are generally a big gamble. I prefer contextual search based ads like you find on Google. We'll cover those in a future Marketing Monday column.

"Why?"

Check out"Why?" one of the most popular features on the SCU Blog.It's a very simple concept - one image, one artist and one short sound byte. Each artist shares what makes the image one of their most favorite. There were fifty different artists featured in 2016 and we anticipate doubling that in 2017. Click on the link above and you can scroll through all of the episodes to date.

Authors

Skip Cohen is President of SCU, founder of Marketing Essentials International and past president of Rangefinder Publishing and WPPI. He's been an active participant in the photographic industry since joining Hasselblad USA in 1987 as president. He has co-authored six books on photography and actively supports dozens of projects each year involving photographic education.

Special Guests

SCU is proud to bring you some of the most recognized photographers in the industry. You'll also meet a few not so well known, but with terrific ideas to help you build a stronger business model.

Scott Bourne

Scott Bourne has retired, but as the first Dean of Marketing at SCU, a professional photographer and educator his support was critical to the success and growth of SCU. From time to time you'll see a reference to one of his Marketing Monday posts from the SCU or GoingPro archives.